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Amazon's Joni Mitchell Store

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When the dust settles, Joni Mitchell may stand as the most important and influential female recording artist of the late 20th century. Uncompromising and iconoclastic, Mitchell confounded expectations at every turn; restlessly innovative, her music evolved from deeply personal folk stylings into pop, jazz, avant-garde, and even world music, presaging the multicultural experimentation of the ... Read more in Amazon's Joni Mitchell Store

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Without doubt one of the most important & influential artists in all of contemporary music, Joni Mitchell is much more than a legendary icon of the singer-songwriter art form. Since her 1968 debut LP, Mitchell has released a long string of stellar albums as emotionally powerful as they are stylistically diverse. The 5X Grammy winner assisted in the compilation of this new Rhino release, an in-depth career overview more complex than a simple hits collection DREAMLAND offers a glimpse of the timeless innovation she has continued to pursue at each stage of her career.

Amazon.com

Compressing the diverse highlights of Joni Mitchell's four-decade career into the hour-and-change confines of a single CD seems like an unfair challenge. But with Mitchell herself tackling the anthologizing, Dreamland plays like a warm reintroduction to an old, if ever mercurial, musical friend. Taking nothing for granted, Mitchell shrewdly anchors the set with two of her early jazz-infused commercial breakthroughs, "Free Man in Paris" and "In France ," before charting an elliptical course through one of the most consistently inspired song canons in all of pop music. While familiar hits are well-represented, the collection also widens to include her forays with Afrocentric rhythms ("The Jungle Line," title track) and her tribute to a beloved blues legend ("Furry Sings the Blues"). Indeed, the choices here are often as playfully surprising as the tantalizing omissions: "Dancin' Clown," her unlikely '80s collaboration with Tom Petty and Billy Idol, is included yet there's nothing from the sublimely challenging Mingus. It all wends to an elegiac triptych from her latter-day symphonic reinventions (Travelogue and Both Sides Now), their postmodern elegance informed by the bittersweet knowledge that Mitchell undertook a self-imposed recording hiatus thereafter. Richly illustrated with the musician's own distinctive paintings, the 17-track collection also includes new liner notes by writer-director Cameron Crowe. --Jerry McCulley

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

After the mixed blessings of the prior separate CDs "Hits" and "Misses" one might wonder what this latest compilation will achieve. The answer (with some personal doubts) is a great one stop compilation of Joni's best cuts as chosen by the lady herself and remixed with great clarity (especially in the instrument separation). Combined together with a neat package of her paintings (better than the usual good and bad mix), notes by Cameron Crowe and full lyrics and track details this is the best starting point if you are new to the music and for longtime fans I would venture a better memory than her recent boxed set of Geffen recordings.

The order of the tracks is great in showing what an adventursome musical journey she has made, covering all her best known recordings though the choice of specific tracks will inevitably see indivdual longtime fans disappointed (how they could ignore anything from "Turbulent Indigo" plus use the recent orchestral version of "Both Sides Now" in preference to the original would be my doubts).

Best of all it shows the range of consistent and varied songwriting Joni achieved and will hopefully be a very simple answer to refute the "ice lady" image she has unfairly been tainted with over the years.

This 2004 retrospective plays like a wonderful audio tapestry! It is the 2nd of two retrospectives released in 2004, the first being the political euphoria of "The Beginning Of Survival." But "Dreamland" features many of her more popular work (Free Man In Paris, Big Yellow Taxi, Both Sides Now, Etc.) as well as a few underrated gems (Nothing Can Be Done, Dancin' Clown, The Jungle Line, Etc.) And of course it includes extreamly beautiful packaging. Joni's intricate & lovely paintings are displayed as seen on most of her albums. It's an overall beautiful listen & great addition to any diehard fan's collection. Highly recommended.

Dreamland is an overview of one of the finest bodies of work in popular music. It is not necessarily, in my opinion as a long-time Joni Mitchell fan, the best of the best, but it does offer a pleasing and, especially for the casual fan, more than adequate sampling of Mitchell's indescribably eclectic musical adventure. The most essential hits (Help Me, Free Man in Paris and Big Yellow Taxi) are here, along with two songs originally from Mitchell's magnificent masterwork Hejira (Furry Sings the Blues and Amelia, the latter being a beautiful and lushly arranged reinterpretation from the Travelogue album). The majority of the tracks here are upbeat, sing-along tunes, just the sort one would expect on a best-of collection. While some long-time fans are whining about the release of another compilation, they should note Dreamland is not produced for them as much as for the broader public, for people who don't already own every last Joni Mitchell album (yet). This Rhino collection is about exposing more people to Joni Mitchell's music, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.

If you were wondering why so many musicians and critics (and fans) think so highly of Joni Mitchell's work, or if you've heard a few songs and would like to hear a broader sampling, Dreamland is the answer. It offers the heyday pop hits (Free Man in Paris, Help Me) some early folky touchstones, (Big Yellow Taxi, Circle Game), a selection from the fantastic jazz-rock masterpiece Hejira (Furry Sings the Blues), a delightful 80s comedy-drama with Billy Idol and Tom Petty in guest roles (Dancin' Clown) and much more, including some late career orchestral reinventions of earlier songs (Amelia, Both Sides Now). Dreamland is a delicious taste of the diverse and delightful Joni Mitchell catalog.